by Sarra Cannon
She listened, and I watched her every expression, trying to read the conversation and her reaction to it. Finally, she nodded.
“Okay, well I assure you I had no idea this project was so important.” She glanced at me and turned her body away, as if I somehow wouldn’t be able to hear her when she was still three feet away from me. “Yes, I know that we discussed giving her more freedom, but you have to see this from my perspective…. Uh-huh.... But do you really think that’s the right approach?”
I shifted my weight nervously.
“If you really think that’s for the best,” she said with a sigh. “When can we reschedule?”
I nearly jumped up and down. She was going to let me go. I couldn’t believe it.
“Thank you, Susannah,” Mom said. “Yes, we’ll see you then.”
She hung up and handed me the phone, her lips pursed and one hand on her hip.
“Well, that was incredibly embarrassing,” she said. “What were you thinking going behind my back to tell your doctor about this important project when you’ve barely mentioned it to me? I thought we had already agreed that you would go to Nicole’s tomorrow afternoon?”
“I’ve been telling you all week how important this project is,” I said. “And a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon won’t be enough time. I knew that if I asked you about it, you would just say no.”
“Which is my right,” she said. “I am your mother, and if I think it’s best for you to stay home right now, that’s the way it’s going to be.”
My dad walked into the kitchen, an eyebrow raised. “What’s going on?”
Mom explained the phone call with Dr. Millner, and my father looked from Mom to me and back again.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” he said. “Marayah’s grades this year are extremely important if she wants to get into a good school. If this project is that important, she should be allowed to go to her friend’s to work on it.”
Mom clasped her hands and lifted her chin. “I see everyone has decided to gang up on me this morning,” she said. “I don’t see why it’s necessary for her to spend the night away from home, but since I’m out-numbered in this, I guess it’s okay. But you are to go straight to Nicole’s after you drop your sister off. And I want you to call me when you get there.”
“I will,” I said, smiling and kissing her cheek. “I’ll call you when I get there, and I’ll call you in the morning, but I’m begging you please not to call over to her house to check on me like I was still eight years old. It’s humiliating.”
My father chuckled, and it was nice to see him smile. It was such a rare thing for him these days.
“I have to go get dressed for school,” I said. “Thank you again. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
I practically skipped out of the kitchen and headed for my sister’s room to tell her that she was indeed an evil genius.
38
This Is The Last Time
Now that I’d gotten my parents to agree to letting me off the hook for the evening, I needed to convince Nicole to cover for me one more time.
I sought her ought just before homeroom. She was standing by her locker talking to her long-time crush, Michael.
“Hey Marayah,” Michael said. “Haven’t seen you around much this year. How are things going?”
“Pretty good,” I said. “My parents have been wanting to keep me home more, for obvious reasons.”
He looked down at his shoes. “Well, I better run,” he said. He touched Nicole’s arm. “I’ll talk to you later?”
She smiled. “See you soon,” she said.
“Are you guys an official thing now or what?” I asked when he was gone. I realized I hadn’t asked her much about her own life since I’d gotten back. I’d been too preoccupied with my own. I needed to be a better friend to her.
Once this whole thing was over, I would make it up to her.
“Nothing official, but we’ve been hanging out some on the weekends,” she said. “I think we’re going to the game tonight. Are you coming?”
Crap. I’d forgotten about the first game of the football season. Luckily, my parents never went to the games, so they wouldn’t see Nicole there without me. I hoped.
“No, but that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. I felt guilty asking her to cover for me again, but this was important. “I told my parents I was spending the night with you tonight to work on that physics project. Can you cover for me if they call? I warned them not to this time, but just in case?”
Nicole slammed her locker shut. “You know, I don’t understand you,” she said. “You never want to come hang out with us after school, anymore, but you’re willing to lie to your parents so you can, what? Go out with Jordan the loser?”
Wow, she was really pissed.
“He’s not a loser,” I said. “Which you would know if you spent any time with him instead of spreading rumors that aren’t even true. He was never mixed up in selling drugs, and he’s never been expelled from school.”
“I don’t understand why you’re ditching the rest of your friends to hang out with him,” she said. “Come out with us tonight, instead. It’ll be fun, I promise.”
“I can’t,” I said. “There’s something else I really need to do, and it’s important. Will you please cover for me this one last time?”
She made a face and leaned against her locker. “Are you still coming over tomorrow to work on the project? Or am I going to have to do most of that myself?” she asked. “I miss spending time with you, Marayah.”
“I know. I miss you guys, too,” I said. “I’ll definitely be there tomorrow afternoon. I promise. And I won’t ask you to do this again.”
She sighed. “Okay, but this is the last time,” she said. “Come over tomorrow by two. I have some things I need to do tomorrow night, and I don’t want to be stuck working on this too late.”
“Thank you,” I said, throwing my arms around her neck.
She laughed. “Come on. We’re going to be late for homeroom.”
Jordan was waiting by the Jeep when I walked out of the building after the last bell. I sucked in a deep breath, my nerves kicking in at the thought of spending the whole night with him. I really hoped he was okay with it, because I had nowhere else to go.
“Hey,” he said. “Are we good?”
I nodded. “I just have to drop Kimi off at home first.”
Kimi, of course, was all smiles and questions as we drove to the house. “So, where are you guys going?” she asked. “I just know it’s something romantic and mysterious.”
“You told her?” Jordan asked.
I shrugged. “I had no choice,” I said. “Besides, it was Kimi’s plan that saved us. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Thank you for that,” Jordan said.
“Just looking out for my big sis,” Kimi said, squeezing between the front seats until she was practically in our laps.
“Are you wearing your seatbelt?” I asked.
“Kinda,” she said.
“Put it on right,” I said.
Kimi groaned and leaned back. “Fine, don’t tell me where you’re going,” she said. “But I want to hear all about it when you get back.”
Jordan and I exchanged glances. Hopefully Kimi would never find out the truth about what we were investigating.
I dropped her off at the house and she came around to knock on my window. I rolled it down.
“What?” I asked.
“Stay safe,” she said. “Call me if you need me. Oh, and don’t forget to use a condom.”
“Kimi,” I shouted, but she was already halfway to the front door.
My entire body went warm.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I like her. She’s fun.”
I couldn’t help but like him even more knowing that he appreciated my sister’s silly sense of humor. I longed to know more about him.
“So, where to?” I asked.
�
�Mind if I drive? It’ll be easier than trying to tell you every turn along the way.”
“Okay,” I said, handing him the keys.
We switched places, and soon, we were on our way to meet this mysterious medicine woman.
In just a couple of hours, I would finally get some of the answers I’d been searching for all this time.
39
A Part Of Me Now
Jordan took back roads up into the mountains.
“It’s beautiful up here,” I said. I’d lived in these mountains my whole life, but I’d never been down these roads. When my family went on vacations we usually took the regular tourist routes, but it was nice to see the natural beauty of the mountains away from the cities.
“It really is,” he said. “I had never been here before until I started looking for my brother, but it’s breathtaking.”
“Where did you grow up?” I asked. His records had said Oklahoma, but for all I knew his entire file could have been faked.
“All over the place, really,” he said. “My family traveled a lot, so we got moved from town to town when we were younger.”
“So you didn’t grow up in Oklahoma?” I asked.
He gave me the side-eye. “What would make you think that?”
I sunk low in my seat. “I may have gotten a look at your school records,” I said. “I wanted to know if the rumors were true about you being expelled from several schools for drugs.”
“I don’t even know how that rumor got started,” he said. “But no, my file is complete fiction. I never really went to a public school until I enrolled at Twin Rivers.”
“Were you homeschooled?” I asked.
“You could say that,” he said. “Mostly self-taught when it comes to the basics. My dad was more interested in teaching us about our heritage and our duty as Spiritwalkers.”
There was that word again, but I still didn’t fully understand what a Spiritwalker was.
“Where are your parents now?” I asked.
“Both gone,” he said, his eye twitching slightly. “My mother left when I was young, and my father passed away three years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
I had no idea he’d been through so much. No wonder he’d come all this way looking for his brother.
“And the story about caring for your ailing grandmother here in town?” I asked.
“What do you think?” he asked, his lips lifting slightly.
“Right,” I said. “I figured. So you’re all alone in this?”
He shook his head and glanced at me. “I have you.”
Our eyes met for a brief moment before he turned his attention back to the road.
How was it possible to feel so connected to a guy I just met?
We rode in silence for a while as the road curved back and forth up the mountain. I picked up a plain folder he’d brought with him and stuffed between the seats.
“What’s this?” I asked, opening it up.
“No, don’t—”
Jordan tried to take it from me, but I had already seen the worst of it.
My entire body became feverish, and I felt sick to my stomach. “Roll down the window, please,” I said, closing my eyes.
Inside the folder, there was a picture of Hailey from the neck up, her body lying on a cold metal table in the morgue. Her eyes were closed, and half her face was covered in a large purple bruise. Her skin was so pale.
“I’m so sorry,” Jordan said, letting the windows down a crack so that cool mountain air rushed into the car. “I should have warned you about what was in there. Are you okay?”
I couldn’t speak. I brought my knees up toward my chest and huddled against the door, letting the cold air skate across my skin.
“Where did you get that?” I asked finally. “Is that her autopsy report?”
“After I left your place last night, I broke into the local medical examiner’s office and stole it,” he said. “I wanted to bring it to the medicine woman, because there were a few things that were strange about the report.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Are you sure you want to hear this?”
I shook my head. “No, but I need to,” I said. “We’re in this together, right?”
“You were right about Hailey crying black tears,” he said. “The medical examiner couldn’t explain it, but he did note that there was a black, oil-like substance in her tear-ducts. He said he found the same strange substance in her lungs and her heart.”
I sat up. “What does that mean?”
Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
“He explained it in his report as debris from the river, but that doesn’t make any sense,” Jordan said. “If Hailey died on impact like he said in his conclusion, she wouldn’t have breathed in the water from the river. He glossed over it in his report, but there’s only one explanation for why that substance would have been in her body that night.”
“What?” I asked.
“It was already there before she died.”
I was afraid he was going to say that. Did that also mean I had something black in my own lungs and heart?
I shuddered.
“But how did it get there?” I asked.
“That’s what we’re going to find out tonight, I hope,” he said.
“Have you met her before?” I asked. “The medicine woman?”
“Once. I was very young, but I remember her,” he said. “She was old then, too. In her nineties, I think, which means she’s well over one hundred years old now.”
I gasped. “You’re kidding?”
“No,” he said. “Spiritual leaders often outlive most of their tribe, and it’s not unusual for them to live to be quite old.”
“Is she going to be able to get rid of it?” I asked.
“What?” he asked.
“Whatever’s inside of me?” I asked.
“We still don’t know for sure that it’s there,” he said, reaching across the center console to grab my hand.
But I knew the truth. I’d been denying it all this time, but I could feel it hiding there in the darkest part of my mind. Whatever this was, it was a part of me now.
We rode the rest of the way without talking. Jordan held onto my hand, and I leaned against the window, letting the wind rush through my hair.
The light was already beginning to fade from the sky by the time Jordan drove down a winding dirt path high in the mountains. From the looks of it, not many cars made their way down this road.
I was starting to wonder if he’d gotten lost when he turned a corner and a small village of houses appeared in a clearing amongst the trees.
It was a modest grouping of homes, each no bigger than few hundred square feet if I had to guess. Five men stood in the center of the clearing, watching as we parked and got out of the Jeep.
They’d obviously been waiting for us to arrive. I felt sick to my stomach as we approached them.
An older man stepped forward from the group and shook hands with Jordan.
“It’s been a long time, Greycloud,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear about your brother. I wish we were meeting again under happier circumstances.”
“Thank you,” Jordan said. “This is the girl I was telling you about. Marayah, this is James. He was a friend of my father’s.”
“Hi,” I said. I held my hand out to him, but he shook his head in apology. I pulled back, embarrassed and strangely ashamed.
“Please forgive me,” James said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you must understand, this is a delicate situation. It’s better if there is no energy around you other than your own. It might cloud the Maria’s ability to see clearly.”
Maria. It was the first time I’d heard anyone say the medicine woman’s name, and I was surprised to find it so much like my own. It made her seem more real to me. Less terrifying and strange.
“I understand.”
I didn’t really understand it, but I knew why he didn’t want to touch me.
If he only knew how hard it was to actually be me right now. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, to say the least.
“Maria has been waiting for you,” James said. “The sun has already begun to set. Come with me. I’ll take you to her.”
The others parted so that we could walk straight through the small village. He led us toward a house on the far end of the gathering. The outside was decorated with pots of brightly-colored flowers, drawings that must have been done by children, and various types of wind chimes that created an eerie chorus as the wind blew around us.
James turned to me just before he opened the door. “Please, remove your shoes and leave them here on the porch,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you out here when you’re done.”
“Don’t speak unless she asks you a question,” Jordan whispered. “And don’t look so scared. It’s going to be okay.”
My heart was beating so fast, I was sure that everyone could hear it over the sound of the wind. A nervous lump had formed in my throat, and I probably couldn’t have said a word, even if I tried.
What exactly was this woman going to say to me? And what was I going to do if my greatest fears were true?
I didn’t have much time to stand and worry about it, because James opened the door and motioned for us to go inside.
I glanced at Jordan, but he seemed completely comfortable and unconcerned. He slipped off his boots and walked into the small house.
It was cool out tonight, with a strong breeze, but the hair at the back of my neck was soaked with sweat. Whatever I found out in the next few minutes would likely change my life forever.
I cleared my throat, but the lump stayed put.
Okay, here goes.
I slid the shoes off my feet and left them there at the entrance. Slowly, nervously, I walked inside to learn my fate.
40
The Three Sisters
An elderly woman sat in a well-worn brown recliner near the back of the small living room.
None of the lamps or overhead lights were on, and the only light in the room came from a cluster of candles on the table in front of the old woman. The light flickered, casting shadows on her wrinkled face.